urbanSTL

Good stuff here on Kent from a 2012 Forbes article. It sounds like everything he touches turns to gold.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi ... -the-year/

I work closely with Monsanto...do not worry about this one...This would be like Mallinkrodt...A shell office with a few lawyers in the UK.

I only caught 10 minutes of it, but this was being discussed on the Diane Rehm show on NPR today. I'm not sure who the representative from Monsanto was, but the moment I flipped the program on, he was stating his commitment to the two St. Louis campuses and how they intend to continue expansion.

A couple minutes later a man from St. Louis called in asking for assurances that Monsanto would not treat St. Louis the way so many other corporations have over the past couple decades when they've merged or been acquired. The Monsanto representative went further in guaranteeing more jobs, more facilities, and more investment in the St. Louis campuses. In fact, he took the opportunity to announce that some zone changes had been finalized in Chesterfield so that they could build new labs and research facilities out there.

What I'm not sure he did was guarantee the world HQs would remain in St. Louis. (I'm not sure he intentionally didn't either, I just only had it on for a few minutes.)

But they he was extremely firm in Monsanto's commitment to St. Louis, and I really don't have any reason to doubt that.

Yep. Monsanto's got way too much invested in STL to back away now.

Again, it will be a shell office with an international legal dept there...See Mallinckrodt.

Anyone know, if Monsanto was to domicile overseas, would STL lose a Fortune 500 company? I'd assume that would be the case if the official combined company made their official HQs in Switzerland or London, but I'm not sure. What if they only domicile overseas, but keep the HQs here? Just looking at it strictly from a prestige angle. Will we lose another F500 company under one or both of these scenarios?

Anyone??????

We would lose them as a Fortune 500 even if they were only domiciled overseas, but kept their operational HQ in St. Louis.

Express scripts is 20th on Fortune 500. They are so big they have to be concerned about anti-trust. We are lucky to have them in St. Louis and they have been very savvy in their acquisitions and growth strategies over the years.

^That was last year; this year they've slipped to number 22.

BTW, CVS is number 10; they don't seem to have a problem with anti-trust.

So does Post acquire? It is interesting that a few St. Louis companies are on the hunt from Monsanto's big play to Millancrodkt as noted in st Louis biz journals.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 1595e.html

ConAgra Foods Inc, the maker of Slim Jim beef jerky and Chef Boyardee pasta, said it would exit its struggling private label foods business and reported a 3.7 percent rise in quarterly sales.

ConAgra's move to exit the private label foods business comes two years after its $5-billion acquisition of Ralcorp, which made it the biggest U.S. maker of foods sold under supermarket brands.

Ralcorp is large enough to spin off on it's own. I'd love to see them spun off and continue to be based in St. Louis, as it's own entity. This is all assuming that a buyer is not out there, looking to purchase the company out-right.

Purchasing Centene would be very expensive given how much they are growing. Let's hope they're growing too fast and would be too expensive and can fend UNH off. Centene needs to make a large acquisition ASAP.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH), in turn, won't bid on Aetna, but may acquire both Health Net, Inc. (NYSE: HNT) and Centene Corp (NYSE: CNC) within the next 12 to 18 months, according to Gupte.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/leerink-s ... 58718.html

^ I would think both Centene and Express Scripts need to make a play. Talk about a power house situation for St. Louis if Centene continues to be an acquirer, Express Scripts makes a play for Walgreens in addition to the fact that Ascension Health is a big player in the hospital/health care market. St. Louis health care industry would be on par with its financial services.

^I don't think Express Scripts could afford Walgreen's. But perhaps McKesson, Cardinal, or AmerisourceBergen could provide some added scale and diversification.

It'd be great to see Ralcorp come back to St. Louis. Unfortunately, ConAgra has let about 33% of the Ralcorp St. Louis workforce go since buying it 2 1/2 years ago. But there are still about 300 ConAgra/Ralcorp employees Downtown in the Bank of America Plaza building. I think ConAgra will sell instead of spin-off, simply because ConAgra seems eager to move on and a sale would be faster. Hopefully Post ends up being the buyer.

Mallinckrodt is said to be bidding for Roxane Labs:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... d51f5.html

Emerson is shaking things up by spinning off its network power business, and considering alternatives for other business lines.

In the past St. Louis has directly benefitted from Emerson spin-offs - Belden and ESCO are both STL-based Emerson graduates. However, the network power business, which is the market leader in its business, and nearly a Fortune 500 company with $5.1 billion in revenue, is based in Columbus, Ohio. That said, it sounds like Emerson will be looking to make substantial acquisitions in the lines of business it intends on keeping.

The Post's take including an interview with CEO David Farr:
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 4915a.html

Centene acquiring Health Net in $6.8 billion deal


http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/morn ... 1435838074

^This should help Centene stay independent. As you know, rumors have been out there, regarding Centene as a possible takeover/buy-out target.

^ agree, now if could consolidated some of their office space leases into a new tower, whether it be Clayton and/or downtown or in between in the Central Corridor.

^Centene is working on a second tower in Clayton.